All posts in Featured YuGiOh! Articles

With the advanced forbidden/limited list now in effect, many decks have become viable that were once borderline unplayable in full-power Pepe format. I think we can all agree that seeing twenty-nine of the same deck in Top32 of YCS Atlanta was not healthy for the game. It is acceptable for a deck to be the best, but it does not need to be absolutely uncontested. Think about Nekroz format where you had Burning Abyss as a strong second. Both decks won their fair share of events despite Nekroz having the stronger engine. Players were forced to innovate constantly to keep Read more

There is an overwhelming consensus that Instant Fusion is not needed in the Pendulum deck. Most players who do use it don’t maximize on it. Click here to see some of the deck lists from YCS Atlanta that clearly indicates a trend away from the card. I think that this trend is incorrect and today I’m going to make an argument for why Instant Fusion should not only be included, but also maxed out on. First of all let’s address how it’s possible for the masses to come to an incorrect consensus. After all, it is being excluded in Read more

Pendulums took a big blow with the recent adjusted list that banned Plushfire, banned Damage Juggler, banned Tellarknight Ptolemaeus, limited Luster Pendulum, limited Monkeyboard, and limited Skullcrobat. After taking 29 of the Top 32 spots at YCS Atlanta it seems like these hits might have been necessary, but do they outright cripple the deck? I wouldn’t be so sure of that. Pendulum summoning is a once per turn Soul Charge built into a game mechanic and I’m willing to bet that the best deck will be whichever deck does it the best. Today I’m going to talk about some of Read more

The monarch structure deck was highly anticipated, but failed to deliver when it was time for YCS Atlanta. We can attribute this to many factors, whether it be a lack of consistency, a mechanic too ancient to keep up, or the relatively “fair” plays when viewed side-by-side with full power Pepe. In this article, I am going to go over what I feel are the main issues with Monarchs and what the future holds for the deck. Brick by boring brick This is nothing unknown to the world. The deck draws unplayable a lot. Like, a lot a lot. I Read more

Over the last couple of years there has been a trend to side out powerful cards in mirror matches. We saw cards like Return From the Different Dimension, Vanity’s Emptiness, and Djinn Releaser of Rituals be offered to be sided out to make the game more fair. This trend has continued into the Pendulum era with the offer to side out Wavering Eyes. I have always been a fan of offering to side out cards to make the games more fair, but Wavering Eyes is something I disagree with siding out. I’m back today to tell you why I don’t Read more

Practice makes perfect right? Playtesting is a very common form of practice for those preparing for an event, which is typically a process of identifying your good/bad match-ups and refining them through various trials of matches. Lets take Yugioh out of the equation and substitute it for American Football because it is the post season after all! With four teams remaining out of the entire culmination of the NFL, one could say that these are the best teams in the country. Lets use each team and substitute them for a different deck in today’s metagame. New England Patriots: PePe Read more

One of the biggest questions amongst duelists after the release of BOSH is whether or not they should be playing hand traps, and if so, which ones and how many. While the answer may not be clear, we can certainly draw some conclusions by evaluating each of them individually. Hand traps, just like any other cards, have their strengths and weaknesses. On top of that, not every deck can support certain ones. In this article, I am going to go over how I feel about each of the viable hand traps, and which decks can capitalize off of them the Read more

The pendulum mechanic has finally been fixed. The recent release of Breakers of Shadow has brought us some of the most anticipated and powerful cards that we have seen in a long time. If you remember, my biggest gripe with pendulums was the fact that it essentially reduces your hand by two cards. Going first emphasizes that flaw even more. Now, however, the scales generate advantage from just being in the pendulum zone. In this article, I am going to analyze Pepe post BOSH and go over some of the other strong influences in the new meta. Let’s start by Read more

Hello everyone, I’m back this week to recap my Third Place finish at ARG Circuit Series Orlando! Leading up to ARG Orlando I had my heart set on playing PePe, or some deck that utilized the powerful pendulum mechanic. As I played more and more matches with PePe I began to feel myself losing control of games just because my opponent had Wavering Eyes and I did not have an out (Damage Juggler/Wavering Eyes). At first I thought that these games where I was losing control could have been the result of making an incorrect play, but then I noticed Read more

Ronald Reagan famously asked the American voters during the 1980 presidential election, “Are you better off than you were four years ago?” It was a question that resonated with people, because most people didn’t keep up with the nuances and daily happenings in Washington to be able to measure Jimmy Carter’s presidency against. What they did know was how they were doing relative to four years ago. Was it harder to buy milk or a gallon of gas? These were things the people were highly sensitive to in their everyday life. Reagan then asked for their vote if they were Read more